Spectra of magnetic turbulence in a relativistic plasma
| Autor: | Cristian Vega, Stanislav Boldyrev, Vadim Roytershteyn |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2022 |
| Předmět: |
Plasma Physics (physics.plasm-ph)
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) Physics::Fluid Dynamics Space and Planetary Science Physics::Plasma Physics Physics::Space Physics FOS: Physical sciences Astronomy and Astrophysics Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Physics - Plasma Physics |
| Popis: | We present a phenomenological and numerical study of strong Alfv\'enic turbulence in a magnetically dominated collisionless relativistic plasma with a strong background magnetic field. In contrast with the non-relativistic case, the energy in such turbulence is contained in magnetic and electric fluctuations. We argue that such turbulence is analogous to turbulence in a strongly magnetized non-relativistic plasma in the regime of broken quasi-neutrality. Our 2D particle-in-cell numerical simulations of turbulence in a relativistic pair plasma find that the spectrum of the total energy has the scaling $k^{-3/2}$, while the difference between the magnetic and electric energies, the so-called residual energy, has the scaling $k^{-2.4}$. The electric and magnetic fluctuations at scale $\ell$ exhibit dynamic alignment with the alignment-angle scaling close to $\cos\phi_\ell\propto \ell^{1/4}$. At scales smaller than the (relativistic) plasma inertial scale, the energy spectrum of relativistic inertial Alfv\'en turbulence steepens to $k^{-3.5}$. Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures. Published in ApJL. Changes relative to last version: some typos were corrected |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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